


The Graciousness of Your Feet

by Hermonthis



Category: 1001 Arabian Nights - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Falling In Love, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-10
Updated: 2015-01-10
Packaged: 2018-03-06 22:44:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3151058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hermonthis/pseuds/Hermonthis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Shahryar starts to love Scheherazade. Originally written in 2008</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Graciousness of Your Feet

**Author's Note:**

> Story also inspired by Cameron Dokey's book _The Storyteller's Daughter_

And tonight, she will not die. By your hand, by your choice, you remain still. Pillows piled higher than the heads sacrificed for the throne prop your gilded back, and your paper-thin heart awaits the soft rustle of the omnipresent footfalls that tells you she is near.

A king's intuition says Scheherazade is smiling underneath her twinkling, purple veil, but for all your knowledge of forgiveness and betrayal cannot recognize that her lips part only in reaction to your own. It is graciousness, you reason, that lets you hold out your hand for her to take as she climbs the seven steps up to the bed for tonight's adventure.

Tomorrow, there are hands. The creases and dimples on her palms are so numerous one cannot tell where one line starts and the other ends; so many rivers in a land thirsty for new life. Long painted fingernails scratch the thinness of the organza and your ears scream with memories of women in silk. And you think this Queen of Persia is the last of these women, and the beginning of you.

There is freedom in her words, illuminated by the light in her eyes which reflects the lamps of this room. You know as well as she there is more truth in her stories than any artist’s picture. It is because you start to believe - and while you still need this storyteller to pass the days and nights in timeless succession to carefully stitch the wounds your first love tore open, the Vizier’s daughter holds her life towards you like a cup of water collected in a banana leaf.

And you really do believe.


End file.
